Rossella Jardini, the creative director of Moschino, is filled with beguiling surprises — just like the fun-loving Italian ready-to-wear label she oversees. The first thing she wants to make clear: She's not a designer. "I am someone with many crafts, many activities, and good taste," she explains. "I tell my assistants what they should do, but I don't design, and it seems presumptuous to say that I do."

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What she has done is transform the Moschino brand into its modern incarnation after the death of the Milan company's founder and her great friend, Franco Moschino, from AIDS in 1994. Though she may not put pen to drawing board, she supervises a talented group of designers, window dressers, and image makers for the house. "They see me as a type of muse," she says of her team. But it is her unique eye that has specifically kept the witty spirit of Moschino alive, and a glance at her whimsical apartment shows her good taste — and eccentric style — at work.

Jardini lives on Milan's very exclusive Viale Majno, home to some of the city's most celebrated residents. Donatella Versace lives across the street. "I always see a limousine humming outside her apartment," says Jardini, her face crinkling up at the thought of a full-time chauffeur. She may have the posh address, but Jardini's a do-it-yourself kind of lady: She bustles around Milan in her tiny Fiat Panda.

Her unconventionality is refreshing for Milan. She cohabits with her companion of 20 years, Piero Mocarelli, and wears five rings on her wedding finger even though she is not married. She pals around with Marni's Consuelo Castiglioni and Miuccia Prada and shares in the latter's extreme passion for vintage Yves Saint Laurent. "Miuccia has an entire floor of her apartment building dedicated to her clothes," reports Jardini, "so I was thinking of buying an office space downstairs!"

In fact, she could use it. Her extensive closet space is already bulging at the seams with vintage Moschino, Yohji Yamamoto, Comme des Garçons, and one-of-a-kind pieces from Hermès. Come spring, she won't have to do much shopping, though, as most of her wardrobe has the same interesting volume and shapes seen on the runways. "I've never loved things that were too tight or body clinging," she says. "I don't like '80s fashion at all."

But she is a great lover of a uniform. For work, it's tailored pants and a man's shirt — Moschino signatures — with loads of gold jewelry. And at night, she relies on two shirtdress styles (one long, one short, both in silk) that she has in four colors each, including her favorite color, chartreuse. "It's a form of snobbery, I guess, to wear the exact same dress at night," Jardini says.

"Today it's very difficult to find a woman who has a style," she continues. It's easy to see why this would irk her, as her own look is nonreferential. "She always looks divine," observes burlesque star Dita Von Teese, a Moschino fanatic, of Jardini.

Her home, where one is as likely to stumble over a stuffed elephant or a giant snail pillow as an important piece by Gio Ponti, Piero Fornasetti, or FontanaArte, is just as delectable. "I buy things that are very different but that go well together because they're connected by the same attitude," she says. Each room is dressed in a distinct shade that shows off her skill as a colorist: buttery sage, periwinkle, mauve, and bright turquoise, the ideal canvas for her unusual collection of art deco and midcentury-modern pieces.

It is a perfect party pad, but with her schedule there's little time for cooking or entertaining. "I like to," she says, dreaming of dinners, "but normally I arrive after the guests."